Honky Tonk Jazz Club

The Honky Tonk Jazz Club of Dendermonde is until today literally a bastion of traditional jazz music in Flanders. It also played a pioneering role in the present musical landscape in Flanders.

In 1962 Bert Heuvinck, together with his three brothers Mon, Piet and Jan, founded the "Jeggpap New Orleans Jazzband" in the basement kitchen of their parental home at the Dendermonde Leopold II Laan. This location became the very first jazz club of Dendermonde. Soon however this place became too small and they went looking for a suitable rehearsal room which they found a few meters further in a half forgotten city bunker of the nearby Bastion V. We write the year 1965. The band started living a successful historical life of its own and sympathetically threw its amateur musical pioneers overboard by dropping them in an organisation aptly named "Honky Tonk Jazz Club". It would mark the start of more than 1350 club concerts, 215 festival acts, 406 pub touring bands and 51 jazz boat events.

New Orleans icon and clarinettist George Lewis visited the club in 1966, but it was mainly the International Jazz Festivals (1971 - 1990) that put both Honky Tonk and the city of Dendermonde on the world map thanks to attracting 'legends' such as Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Jack Bruce (Cream band), Charly Watts and Ian Stewart (Rolling Stones), BB King, Dee Dee Bridgewater, Ray Charles (with The Raelettes and Big Band), Toots Thielemans... and the list goes on and on. As if that were not enough, the club also provided a real scoop. In a time where every village seems to have its own pub crawl, it was Honky Tonk who brought the concept to Flanders in 1980. "Flanders' first pub crawl" is a title that is still cherished by all Honky Tonk'ers... It was not an own creation, as the mustard was taken from the Dutch town of Breda.

Even now, almost 55 years after its foundation, the club is still buzzing as never before. On average, club concerts are organised in "den bunker" every 14 days. These almost always take place in a sold-out bunker, so reservations are highly recommended. Wendell Brunious, Leroy Jones, Lillian Boutté and Charmaine Neville are some of the better-known international jazz names who have performed in the Honky Tonk bunker in recent years.

In addition, piano virtuoso and Ghent native Norbert Detaeye is inextricably linked to the house as a house pianist and "The New Orleans Roof Jazzmen" (the oldest New Orleans orchestra in Flanders, founded by the late Pierre "Pitou" Claessens and now conducted by Bruno Van Acoleyen) have been the house orchestra for years. In addition, in 2009, "Second Line", a youthful group formed by some of the club's younger members, was founded. They bring their own programme that mainly focuses on roots, rockabilly & country and is aimed at a younger and wider audience. The Dendermonde Honky Tonk Jazz Club is still looking to the future with hope. A future that is assured, and that again looks very ambitious.